Like Smoke
by alherrin
Summary: The convoy makes it to Alaska and starts to rebuild. After months of waiting for Alice to find them, Claire starts to give up. Will the older woman show up to rekindle what they started in the desert?


_Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters or storyline from Resident Evil. Just the thoughts swirling around my head that Alice and Claire are perfect for each other..._

* * *

Few things could get past the stony exterior of Claire Redfield's defenses. A prolonged period of time without nicotine was definitely one of those things.

She could remember her last cigarette. A stale, unfiltered Pall Mall that she had snagged from what had at first appeared to be an empty pack tossed beside a trashcan in a gas station office, just north of Vancouver.

She had saved it for months, always keeping it for another time, tucked behind her ear. _For a rainy day,_ she would always tell K-Mart, before looking up and searching the sky.

She had smoked it when she had finally come to terms with the realization that Alice was not coming to find them. Whether the older woman had fallen victim to Umbrella, or simply realized that following a poor excuse convoy of humans into the Alaskan wilderness to _rebuild _was hopeless, Claire would never know.

What could she expect from the woman really? It wasn't as if Alice had professed her undying love for the convoy leader. They had only been together a few short weeks, before they were parting ways, and the breathless fumbling of lips and hands in the darkness of the hummer had been more of a desperate plea for contact than any manifestation of buried emotions.

* * *

It had only happened once, when K-Mart had fallen asleep in the Army deuce with Carlos. Claire had finally let her walls down for an instant, and the woman had crept in silently without her even knowing until it was too late.

"Alice," she had whispered in the darkness. "Are you lonely?"

The older woman had remained silent for so long that Claire thought she had been asleep. Finally, she had heard the woman shifting in the back. Felt the pull of her own seat as Alice climbed into the front with her. _On_ her.

Alice's agile fingers had tangled in her hair, pulling the redhead forward into a bruising kiss.

Claire had clung desperately to the older woman that night. Memorizing the feel of Alice's calloused fingers gliding along her overheated skin. The taste of the older woman's lips. The sound of her low, breathless sighs.

It had only happened once, but once had been enough. Claire had toppled over the precipice of desire and fallen straight into an agonizing torrent of confusing emotions.

The next day, neither of them had spoken a word about it. Claire would have thought she had dreamt the whole thing if not for the bruises on her hips and the angry purplish-red marks along her collarbones.

They may have let it happen again had Alice not chosen to stay behind. And even as she pulled away from the ground, Claire had been certain that the other woman would find them.

But Alice had not come to find them, and days had melted into months. Finally, the redhead had stopped watching the sky and taken the cigarette from behind her ear.

* * *

She could still taste the acrid, stale tobacco on her tongue, feel the harsh smoke coiling inside of her lungs as she held it in as long as she could before exhaling in two identical streams through her nostrils. She had smoked it down to where it had scorched her fingers on the last inhale. She hadn't even minded the mild burn against her skin as she dropped the butt and crushed it beneath her boot.

She'd welcomed the pain of her blistering flesh because it had reminded her that she was still capable of feeling.

The numbness that had settled in after the first few months of waiting for Alice to show, had reduced the redhead to an even more closed-off version of herself. Even K-Mart, who had always managed to slip past her barriers, had stopped asking her if she was okay.

She sat in her cabin high in the trees looking down at two squirrels that were playing a game of tag. Building the tree houses had actually been K-Mart's idea. When, not if, the infection found its way to Alaska, being off the ground would at least give them the advantage of not being ambushed during the night while they were sleeping.

Claire had commended the teen for her idea and watched as K-Mart's chest had swelled with pride at having earned Claire's praise. The blonde teen had grown so much in the past few months that Claire had a hard time remembering the girl was still just fifteen.

Claire had promised the young blonde that she would teach her how to hunt with a bow and arrows today. She smiled, remembering the excitement on K-Mart's face when she had first mentioned it.

She lowered the rope ladder and climbed down to rekindle the fire that had died in the night. What she wouldn't give for a cup of coffee. She filled up her metal cup in the stream and set it in the coals to heat. One of the women in the convoy had shown her a few plants that she could use to make tea. It would have to suffice.

She breathed in deeply, pretending that she was filling her lungs with the thick smoke of a fresh, bold cigarette. The clean, crisp mountain air she breathed in instead was cruelly disappointing. Once she had her tea, she climbed back up to the cabin she shared with K-Mart and waited for the blonde to wake.

She shouldn't have allowed herself to think of Alice. The painful gnawing in her chest had resurfaced as she contemplated just what the woman might be doing at this very moment. Perhaps on the other side of the world, Alice was just waking up and getting ready to start her day as well.

She went to her bedroll and pulled out the worn, red journal that Alice had given to them right before they took off in the helicopter that had brought them to Alaska. She thumbed through the journal, trying desperately to feel the ghost of the other woman in the ink scrawled across the tattered pages.

Seeing the journal only served to remind her of the last time she had seen Alice. Gradually getting smaller and smaller as the helicopter rose in the air, the older woman had remained behind in order to take down the Umbrella facility outside of Las Vegas.

Claire understood why she had stayed. She never resented Alice for her decision, but she had always thought that the mysterious woman would come find them when she had finished. It had, after all, been Alice's idea to rebuild in Alaska.

* * *

The memory of Alice's face when she handed K-Mart the journal was excruciating. Once Claire realized that Alice didn't intend to come with them, she had opened herself to the other woman's searching eyes. She had tried to push all of the words and emotions that neither of them had spoken, onto her face so that the other woman would know exactly how she felt. So that Alice would want to come find them in Alaska.

Alice's eyes had drunk in the redhead's gaze as she raised her hand in a casual salute.

Emotions overwhelmed Claire and before she could swallow it, a quiet sob had wrenched its way from her chest. She heard movement behind her and quickly tried to hide the journal back under her bedroll, but upon turning to look at K-Mart, she knew that the young blonde had seen.

Realization was on K-Mart's face even in the haze of sleep. She sat up and placed a warm hand on Claire's forearm. "She could still come, Claire."

Claire nodded quickly, angling her head away from the blonde so that she could carefully don the mask that she only rarely took off. She let the numbness seep back into her chest, a cold, clawing feeling settling behind her ribcage. "You want me to make you some tea?" she asked the yawning girl.

K-Mart nodded, stretching and reaching for her jacket. "I'll be down in a second." She smiled at the redhead and Claire couldn't help but return the smile, even if her own was a bit hollow.

* * *

They had spent most of the day in the woods. K-Mart picked things up quickly, and before long they had five rabbits, two squirrels and a wild turkey. The two were actually laughing when they came back into camp, and they had to deal with curious glances cast in their direction, mainly at Claire.

It had been a long time since anyone had seen the redhead laugh.

K-Mart helped her skin and clean their kills, and Claire stoked the fire and set up the makeshift camp spit they had managed to build. Soon the smell of roasting meat drew people from their cabins.

Only a few of them had made it to Alaska. Mostly children, so Claire found herself being thrust into the role of parent. K-Mart helped her as much as she could, but the girl was not much more than a child herself. The redhead wasn't cut out for motherhood. Her idea of nurturing was making sure they had at least one meal a day.

As they all sat around the campfire eating their dinner, Claire wondered if they were the last humans left, the seven people keeping the human race from following behind so many other species that had succumbed to extinction. Were the infected creatures dying off without a food source? Or were they constantly wandering, only growing more and more hungry as the days passed?

She wondered how long they had in their little piece of Heaven before the Hell that had consumed the rest of the Earth found them. It was really only a matter of time.

After dinner she had carried the remains of the animals to the river. It was quite a hike, but she needed the time to clear her head. K-Mart was more than capable of holding down the fort for an hour.

* * *

When she arrived back at camp there was an eerie silence and she almost panicked until she saw K-Mart with a couple of the other teenagers in one of the cabins. "I'm back," she called up to the girl, who acknowledged her with a wave.

She climbed back up to her cabin, exhausted after the long day. She barely registered a flash of color and turned to the table to investigate. On the table laid an unopened pack of Marlboro Reds. She gasped. She carefully picked up the pack of cigarettes as if it were a bomb that would explode at her touch. Beneath the cigarettes was a slip of paper.

Tears filled her eyes as she read the words. _Claire, are you lonely?_

She registered then, the feeling of another person with her. Her eyes scanned the room, wide with anticipation, and a growing fear that she may be losing her mind.

Finally, a quiet cough from behind her sent the woman spinning around. Her eyes locked on the silhouette in the doorway. She waited for the apparition to fade away, but instead, the shadow stepped forward and into the light.

The pack of cigarettes fell from her fingers and hit the log floor. "Alice," she breathed.

The taller woman gave Claire a timid smile. "Sorry it took me so long," she whispered in her raspy voice.

Claire had missed that voice. Oh had she missed that voice. She didn't even register the fact that she was moving until she was crashing into Alice and wrapping the older woman in her arms.

Alice stood there, stiff as a board and Claire came to her senses. She pulled away quickly. "God, Alice. I – I'm so sorry," she said, closing her eyes in embarrassment.

She shook her head, eyes still closed. Why had she just done that? Just because the time and distance had nearly destroyed Claire didn't mean that Alice felt the same way. Just because she had thought about that night in the hummer almost every time she lay down to sleep, didn't mean the thought had even crossed Alice's mind once.

She felt something inside of her snap. Being without Alice for so long, she had only imagined good things would come with their reunion. She hadn't allowed herself to think about the fact that the older woman might not feel the things that she felt. That it could be a hundred times harder to deal with the loneliness caused by her absence if she were here, in front of Claire every day, and the redhead still couldn't reach out and touch her.

She hadn't continued down that path of thought long, before strong arms were wrapping around her pulling her close to the warm, hard body she remembered so well.

"Claire, you have nothing to be sorry about," Alice whispered softly. "You just caught me off guard. I didn't think – I mean I didn't know if you felt the same way." Alice tightened her grip on Claire's waist. "I missed you every day I was away. Thinking about, what you were doing. Wondering if you had gotten here okay. Wondering if you ever thought about that night – in the desert."

Claire buried her face into Alice's neck, breathing in the scent of the other woman. Her fingers twisted in the material of Alice's shirt as she ran her hands up the taller woman's back. "I thought about that night every time I closed my eyes," she murmured into the older woman's neck.

"You didn't say anything about it, I thought you wanted to forget that it ever happened. Like it had just been a moment of weakness that we were never supposed to speak of." Alice's eyes were sad as she searched the redhead's face for answers.

Claire let her mask slip away and bared her heart to the other woman. "I wanted so badly to wake up next to you. In your arms, feeling safe. It had been so long since I'd felt safe. But when I woke up in the hummer alone, I thought – I thought I had just filled some unknown urge of yours." Claire shook her head, looking down. "I didn't want to seem weak, or needy, so I didn't bring it up."

She felt Alice's calloused fingers gently brushing against her jawline. She lifted her face to meet the other woman's gaze. Alice's stare was burning with raw emotion that Claire had never seen before in those blue-green eyes.

"Nothing about you is weak, Claire Redfield." Claire could see the sincerity in Alice's eyes. "You are one of the strongest people I've ever met. It was your strength that got me through the last few months. Knowing that if anyone could have made it the 2,400 miles across a barren wasteland filled with creatures from our worst nightmares, it was you. That's why I kept pushing along. That's what kept me going. Knowing that when I was finished with Umbrella, that you would be here."

Claire sighed. Her sad, blue eyes finding the older woman's. "I'd given up on you Alice. I'd given up on ever seeing you again."

Alice frowned. "I stayed away longer than I should have. But I was so scared that you would come here, and settle, and move on. I didn't want to show up and disrupt your life. I know it's arrogant to presume that I would have any affect on your life." She shook her head. "I just didn't want to upset you. I was scared that I would come back and have to see you in someone else's arms."

A look of pure grief graced the older woman's features as she thought about seeing Claire with somebody else.

The redhead couldn't help the smile that tugged at her lips. Alice really did care about her. "No one's arms could've compared after having yours around me." She pulled the older woman closer, wrapping her arms around Alice's neck and pulling her into a kiss.

It was unbearably hesitant at first, Alice's lips just resting upon her own. Claire could have stayed that way for hours, with the soft press of Alice's lips against hers, the gentle puff of the woman's breath fanning against her face. But the urgency of her need made her tongue peek out to beg the older woman for entrance, and entrance was given instantly.

* * *

Smoke curled around their entwined bodies in delicate tendrils. She could only see it when she inhaled, sparking the fiery tip of the cigarette to brighten vividly, bathing the small room in a dull red-orange glow for a few seconds until she released the filter from the press of her lips and exhaled. Then the room would fade into darkness once again.

She could feel Alice's muscled body behind her own. She could feel the older woman's lips toying at her neck, grinning into the skin as Claire whimpered. The redhead smiled and brought the cigarette back to her lips, the glow cutting through the opacity of smoky darkness once again, lighting the room and their path into the future.


End file.
